Valuable Life Lessons that Contribute to Your Well-Being from Training Horses
Horses are changeable in their attitudes and emotions from willing to unwilling, trusting to fearful and relaxed to hyper. Basically a horse’s nature is dynamic, cautious and willing. That makes sense; we are a lot like that ourselves. Horses have two changeable behaviors. They will fluctuate from trusting to not trusting and from social to anti-social…again a bit like we are in our own society. They also seek leadership and live in communities and family groups…hmm, a bit like us. However, when they feel secure and have enough space, food and water they live in unity and harmony with one another.

They are very social and caring and are outwardly affectionate. They seek unity and harmony with one another, most of the time. Once we have formed a deep cross species bond with a horse, it will be deeper than the one we can share within our own species. When we share this cross species bond, the horse shows us how deep our feelings of friendship can truly be. If we choose to look for this connection with all things, our personal well-being and appreciation for life are enhanced. When we can extend this to the people in our life’s our life’s are truly blessed.

To Seek or Be Sought After

If you would like to share a cross species bond with your horse, this feeling or longing within yourself might bring you closer to this connection. However, in the relationship we share with horses, in most cases, the horse did not seek us out. We were attracted to them first. Your attraction and longing for them, can sometimes cause a horse to feel a bit threatened when you approach him. However, I found that Sharing Territory and not trying to make a connection with a horse creates the opposite response. This brings out a horses’ desire to bond with us. Try it; the relationship that develops will be surprising, even with horses that you have not been able to reach.

I have spent as long as 3 months with a horse in order to reach him and when we connected, the wait was worth it! Waiting for Marchador to connect with me helped me to become aware of a deep happiness I felt I was missing at that time. The waiting brought me personal well-being and a deep friendship with my horse that was magical!

Communication is the Key

Communicating with a horse in the moments of harmony shapes their social behaviors and desires for our leadership. This is the key to developing a working bond with your horse. To develop this relationship with your horse further, it is your job to keep up with them in order to keep the relationship in the moment, connecting and growing. The nature of our relationship with horses is always changing. It is either getting better or worse because the relationship is dynamic.

A Horses’ First Response

The nature of a horse is that if a horse trusts you, he will first try to fit in with you and as the relationship develops he will see if he can get you to fit in with him. You can loose a horse’s first response to fit in with you by a lack of leadership, by not taking on the role of a dependable leader or by being too demanding.

Giving a horse the freedom to accept or reject your leadership builds a strong trust. Horses as well as humans do not like to be obligated or pushed around. By giving freedom to a horse to respond, we can see how to better approach a horse and how to go about handling him in the moment we are training and riding him. Giving a horse Liberty takes the force out of the picture. Wouldn’t you rather have someone ask you to do something before they tell you to do it?

Are you a Leader?

The secret to getting a horse to follow your lead willingly is to allow him to shape your leadership and to be desirable as well as effective. Some people can be too lenient and allowing with a horse and that will cause a horse to not want their company or their leadership. Developing relationships with horses, in the training of horses, is a co-creative process and takes experimentation on when to allow and when to not allow. Leadership can be, and should be, a kind of refuge for a horse rather than where the horse learns he can not avoid limits or expectations. Taking a caretaker leadership role draws horses to follow your lead and trust you.

Personal Power

Because horses can be trained though force quickly, it is very tempting for people to use force. But one’s personal power is diminished by depending on force. Force is not the way to gain personal power. If you have worked it out with a horse to the point of being able to create a magical dance without force, you’ve developed a greater personal power that will serve you well throughout your life. It is essential to your personal well-being to learn how to dance with a horse without force, using the magnetic and magical connection.

As the relationship grows so will your understanding of when to pause, when to lead, when to ask you’re horse to give you room and when to give your horse room. Learning these things will deepen the bond and creating a connection that certainly helps the training of your horse.

From Relationships with Horses to Other People

The Waterhole Rituals method of training a horse at Liberty will help you if all you want to do is have a deeper meaningful bond. It will also help you if you want to create maximum performance from your horse for competition.

Being the one responsible for developing a whole hearted connection with your horse is a joy not to be missed! From what you learn on your journey, developing a heart felt connection and magical bond with your horse; you will have gathered skills in how to win the support of others in helping you achieve your dreams as well. You will also naturally know how to better support others in their dreams. If you feel something missing in your relationships with other people, learning how to develop a cross species bond with your horse will also enable you to turn that around. You will find a loyalty that will fill your heart with well-being that you can count on whenever you need it. If this is your interest, check my online school or start yourself out to understand my method and philosophy by reading my books, Naked Liberty as well as the Blog Books, that are a handy guide to go along with my DVD's.

Here is a question for all of you to answer on my blog - What is it that you like best about horses?

Watch out for new horse and human sighting and may the horse be with you.
warmly,
Carolyn